The present invention relates to a telescopic guide for drawers, particularly of the type that includes guideways secured to a piece of furniture on opposite sides of a drawer, guideways secured to the drawer, and rail-type intermediate elements on opposite sides of the drawer to slide on both guideways of the piece of furniture and of the drawer, respectively, by means of rollers or of bearings.
More particularly, the present invention relates to a drawer of the type mentioned above and having a novel and improved configuration and arrangement of components, such as to impart to the guide, and to a drawer associated therewith, a novel and greater usefulness, particularly from the viewpoints of structural and assembly simplifications, as well as the attainment of a greater useful capacity of the drawer, by using less of the space available in a piece of furniture for the guide.
As is already well known, metal drawers are provided with guides including guideways which are secured to a piece of furniture and to opposite sides of the drawer. The guideways form guide rails which slidingly engage with one another, e.g. by the interposition of bearings or rollers, to thereby ensure smooth motion of the drawer, even if the drawer is heavily loaded. Also as is well known, two types of guides are utilized, namely, plain guides, and telescopic guides, the latter having an intermediate guide rail on either side of the drawer, which is designed to cooperate with the guideway of the piece of furniture and with the guideway of the drawer.
Telescopic guides provide a high carrying capacity for the drawer, while also allowing a complete withdrawal thereof from the piece of furniture, which is however not possible with plain guides. In known telescopic guides, the intermediate element is advanced, through a set of bearings and compensating rollers, by the motion of the guideway of the drawer, whereby there occurs a coordinated shifting of both the movable guide rail of the drawer and of the intermediate element. This results however in structural complexity of the guides, in a bulky dimension thereof in a direction transverse of the drawer, and often also in the necessity of having the intermediate elements connected with one another on the sides of the drawer, thereby forming a frame structure by which the useful space of the drawer is decreased.